The founder of popular Coffee Bay Cultural Festival (COCUFE) which takes place annually has passed away. Beauty Sbongile Kunju was found dead this morning at her home in Mqanduli, Mthatha in the Eastern Cape.
DISCOVERY
Kunju's daughter, Bongi Kunju, told ZiMoja that she discovered her mom's lifeless body in their garage floor. "The house was awfully quiet and I was wondering why. I decided to check on her in her room to see if she was up and she wasn't there," Bongi said. She went to the garage to check if maybe she had left the house. "She's usually there if she's not in her room. I went to the garage and attempted to open the door but I felt something was blocking the door and when I peeped a little, through the door, my mom was on the floor."
FINDING HER BODY
Bongi said she called her three times. "She didn't respond. I then slid through the garage door and attempted to wake her up but she didn't wake up," she said. "I suspect that she hit her head on the wall and then collapsed. But I don't know. I called my brother because it was only the three of us in the house, we then flipped her over and we saw her bleeding through her nose." Bongi said she lit the torch of her phone only to find her mother's feet and hands were purple and cold. "That's when I knew she had left us."
DEPRESSION
Bongi said her mom suffered from depression. "She was a very loving and caring mom. She had a lot of stress which caused her to be depressed. Some people owed her money but they didn't give it back, to the point where she got too stressed and started having depression," she added. "During the times when she had depression, she started talking to herself, which worried made my brother and I. This went on for weeks to the point where we got distracted at school. She always put us as her kids first- we were her number one priority." Bongi said. Coffee Bay Cultural Festival known as COCUFE was founded in 2017 to empower the community of the OR Tambo district through arts, culture and heritage by promoting tourism in the district and province.
